Admittedly, it’s a bit weird to write about this album a week before my own wedding. But Sunny Sweeney’s Married Alone serves as a roadmap through potential pitfalls — and a reminder that the worst thing that can happen if it doesn’t work out is you get to move on, eventually. Sweeney approaches the subject with humor and warmth, creating a richly textured country rock album.
The album opens with the searing “Tie Me Up,” evocative of a bender when one is getting their groove back. Sweeney delivers it with brashness and confidence, a woman who knows exactly what she wants — and doesn’t. The band struts their stuff as well, before turning to more somber matters.
The title track and “How’d I End Up Lonely Again” form the album’s emotional backbone. There’s no question that Sweeney is a spirited performer, but these confessionals prove her emotional depth. It’s not a situation I’ve lived through, nor do I hope to, but I feel like I’m right there with Sweeney as she moves through her grief.
I think this album can resonate with anyone, lived experience or not, because Sweeney presents the full emotional cycle of divorce and recovery. Sweeney can view the circumstances with humor just as well as grief because we get the sense that she has distance. Married Alone isn’t merely a divorce album — it’s an album of personal triumph as one moves through one of the most difficult experiences one can go through, and come out the other side.